Now that we are all finished

Now that we are all finished

picking our jaws up off the floor after Gov. Jim McGreevey’s one-of-a-kind press conference in New Jersey, it is worth taking stock of what this extraordinary development might mean for the 2004 race for president both in and out of the Garden State.

McGreevey’s resignation speech was repeatedly called “courageous” on television, and we are still chuckling over a cable news anchor’s instant analysis that the people of New Jersey would be so sympathetic that they would rise up and demand he withdraw his resignation and serve out his term as a proud gay man. (Yep, she really said approximately that, in a “question” to the correspondent following the developments in Trenton.)

A prominent print journalist also told us that in his bigcity newsroom, gay and lesbian reporters stood and applauded as McGreevey joined The Cause, or at least appeared to. This is deep blue America’s reaction to McGreevey’s announcement, perhaps, but it is wildly unrepresentative of red America, or even swing-state purple America.

Let’s get one thing “straight” from the beginning. This is not about gay rights. Some of our most conservative readers certainly will not agree, but we at the Crystal Ball believe that gay and lesbian Americans deserve all of the same rights and responsibilities of citizenship as the heterosexual majority, including the privilege of serving in high public office.

But Jim McGreevey is another matter entirely. Instead of courageous, we would choose another “c” word to describe his speech: clever. The governor wrapped himself in the rainbow flag of gay rights to cover up some most unappealing warts. ‘Stench of corruption’

First, his administration has been surrounded by the stench of corruption almost from the beginning, and there is certainly more to come. Second, the people of New Jersey seemed to smell a rat virtually from the beginning of his term. McGreevey has been consistently unpopular, so low in the polls that few would have bet that he would even have been nominated by the Democrats for a second term. Third and most important, McGreevey has led a governorship of personal sleaze. He has intentionally used two older women—his wives—and two younger women, his daughters, as props to cover up his double life.

Thanks to our correspondent Steve Wells, we were reminded of the ironic New Jersey tourism ads from the past two summers, with McGreevey holding his current